Friday, December 12, 2014

The Channel 4 News has reported that an Indian MNC executive named Mehdi is operating the most popular Jihadi Twitter account called "Shami Witness" or @ShamiWitness from Bangalore.The account has been shut down after the Channel 4 News investigation uncovers the identity of the man behind it.
The Channel 4 News story says that the identity was revealed through a Google+ account, of an email id he used.The twitter handle was seen as one of the chief disseminators of pro-ISIS propaganda on the web. The account handler was also suspected to be a recruiter of Jehadi fighters for the ongoing fight in Syria.The twitter handle @ShamiWitness active since last year, had 20,000 followers and nearly two million visitors a month.In an telephonic interview to Channel 4 News, the man has said “If I had a chance to leave everything and join them I might have… My family needs me here.”

The man behind Shami Witness posted thousands of updates to the @ShamiWitness Twitter account every month, usually from his mobile phone.

Using the @ShamiWitness account he five times tweeted the video of the execution of US aid worker Peter Kassig, and dozens of Syrian soldiers within minutes of it being uploaded to the internet.

Shami may have even joked about the rape of female Kurdish fighters who are fighting ISIS and other rebel groups in northeastern Syria. (Shami contends that the remark involved prisoner exchanges. The tweet has been deleted.)

When Channel 4 asked him whether he approved of all the methods of ISIS including executions and beheading, he said, “Beheadings are discussed in Quran and Hadith itself and I don’t think an honest Muslim will ever say he is against beheadings per se.”